Psychological safety enabling organisational change management in project environment

Purpose Existing research has examined project management, organisational change management (OCM) and psychological safety (PS) mostly as separate streams of inquiry, providing limited understanding of how PS supports change adoption and sustainment in project environments. This paper investigates how PS contributes to OCM in project contexts. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative, two-stage design was adopted. First, a systematic literature review was conducted using the Web of Science and Scopus databases, resulting in a corpus of 143 articles that informed the theoretical framework on PS and project management (PM). Second, 20 semi-structured interviews were carried out with professionals in project and/or change management. The empirical data were analysed using grounded theory coding procedures. Findings The findings indicate that projects operate as vehicles of organisational change, with planned and emergent changes generating distinct stakeholder experiences. OCM supports adoption through communication, stakeholder engagement and sustainment practices, while PS enables trust, voice behaviour, learning and participation. Inclusive leadership, transparent communication, culture of respect and openness to error emerged as key practices supporting psychologically safe change environments. Practical implications The study highlights the importance of integrating PS into organisational change initiatives in project environment. Practices such as inclusive leadership, transparent communication, stakeholder engagement and learning-oriented feedback may support change adoption and sustainment in project environments. Social implications The findings highlight the importance of psychologically safe work environments in supporting employee well-being, participation and constructive engagement during organisational change initiatives in project environment. Originality/value The study contributes to the literature by bringing together PM, OCM and PS within a single integrated analytical framework. The findings provide empirical evidence on the role of PS in supporting communication, participation and change adoption, offering a heuristic framework for understanding these relationships in project environments.